Nitzavim
Can we inhabit our heart center with love and tenderness?
Weekly Wisdom on parashat Nitzavim-Vayelech by Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, Or HaLev Teacher:
We are nearing the end of Sefer Devarim. Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses our teacher, is delivering the final portions of his lengthy speech to B'nai Yisrael. He's speaking now to the generation who will enter the land but did not leave Egypt. He is describing what it means to receive and embody Torah.
We read in our parasha this week,
כִּי קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד בְּפִיךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ לַעֲשֹׂתוֹ.
`The thing is very close to you. It's in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.` (Deuteronomy 30:14)
Earlier in this passage we're taught that the wisdom and connection we need are not in the sea, and not in heaven, but close to us, embodied, right here in our mouths and in our hearts.
So too is our practice. We can choose, this week of Nitzavim-Vayelech, to open with care to the field of the body, and really try to inhabit our heart center with love and tenderness.
You might just notice what it is like to bring awareness to the heart in the body: any sensations, any contraction, anything that opens.
This parasha is always read on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah. It is a reminder of t'shuvah me'ahavah, the loving returning that we've been doing during this month of Elul and will continue into Tishrei. The reminder that the Torah is in our hearts and in our mouths invites us to open, to notice and to ask ourselves: what's here? What is available? If Torah and chayut/aliveness are flowing through you every moment, what does this encourage you to notice here and now?
Shabbat shalom.